


Stockholm Serum

by InimitableBiscuit



Series: Becoming Human, a James Barnes Diary [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: (whispers) - Freeform, Angst, Break Up, Don't copy to another site, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt, FRIDAY is running on VICKI levels of creepy AI, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Bucky Barnes, Poor Clint Barton, Tony is a bit part character today, don't let her know you know, in past, levels of trash, sorry - Freeform, this is hitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-07 07:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InimitableBiscuit/pseuds/InimitableBiscuit
Summary: James finds out about Loki, Natasha finds out about the science fuckery James has been up to with FRIDAY.This is not a good day in the life of Clint Barton.





	Stockholm Serum

**Author's Note:**

> Urm, this is veering on HTP trash, I am sorry.
> 
> TW: non-consensual use of mind altering drugs, past dubcon, Red Room & Hydra fuckery.

There was an echo in here, why was there an echo in his rooms? 

“James. James!” 

He blinked back into the here and now. Tasha was in front of him holding herself so carefully, ready to run even though she’d always been safe with him if there wasn’t a handler around. She relaxed slightly as he gave her a tremulous smile filled with pain. Neither Winter’s nor Yasha’s, it belonged to this new being that he had gained. James, a strange melange of all this body’s previous incarnations. He remembered _everything_ , the highs, the lows, the torture, the brainwashing and now he remembered why he’d just gone blank. 

They had been discussing Clint and Tasha had said...she’d said... 

“I’m happy that he’s started to trust again after Loki. I thought he’d never sleep in a bed again, let alone with another person” 

James blinked at the memory and now Tasha was frowning at him which was frankly no better than the carefully neutral expression of earlier to be honest. 

“You didn’t know?” she asked. 

He swallowed and shook his head, a horrible suspicion creeping into the back of his head. 

“What did” he swallowed again to clear his throat and tried again “What did this Loki do?” 

Tasha was shaking her head slowly. 

“Let’s go for a walk” 

Clearly whatever it was needed less ears. James obeyed, he left his phone on the coffee table, shrugging on a light jacket and gesturing for her to lead the way. 

They had meandered seemingly aimlessly for a couple of miles through the natural peace of the facility grounds before Tasha abruptly sat down on a tree stump. They were in the middle of a small meadow, James guessed that it was the most private place she could think of while he was still limited to the Avenger’s compound. 

Natasha started speaking quietly and as the story of Loki emerged so the true horror of his own crime hit James. He dropped to his knees, face hidden in his hands as he wept in his shame. He ducked away from the hand he sensed closing in on his shoulder. 

“ _Don’t_ ” he gasped. 

He looked up to see her frozen in mid action reaching for him. 

“James?” she asked. 

He couldn’t hide it, he had to tell her and face his rightful death. 

“Tasha I’ve done something terrible” 

He paused to retch dryly at the long grass surrounding him. 

“I, oh god Tasha, I used the serum on him” 

“Not the?” she gasped, openly shocked. He nodded in mute reply. 

“But James why? He clearly liked you already.” 

Good old Natasha, no mention made of the serious ethical issues around using the Red Room’s Stockholm Serum, she understood from one ex brainwashed assassin to another that some things still got turned upside-down in your head even after the trigger words were gone. She deserved the real answer before she executed him. He forced himself to speak. 

“He was avoiding me so much since I started things with Tony, I just wanted to get him to agree to talk to me. It should have just made him the usual more suggestible for one hour but I gave him the wrong one.” 

“ _What wrong one?_ James how many serums are there?” 

Her voice had turned sharp, interrogative but still barely above a whisper. He kept his head bowed and eyes closed. 

“FRIDAY ordered me to get Tony to synthesize a permanent version and then use it on him so that she could use me to encourage him to rest and eat and socialize. I thought I’d picked up the Red Room version to use on Clint but the vials must’ve got moved around.” James drew a shuddering breath “You need to execute me now Tasha, _please_ , I deserve it” His voice was so thick with remorse that he didn’t know if she’d heard half of what she’d said. 

“No” came the flat reply. 

He looked at her face, her expression was murderous. 

“You will go confess and apologize to Clint and then you will help Tony reverse engineer the serum and fix _both_ of them. Then, if Clint wishes, I will help him kill you.” 

James nodded, defeated. They both knew that the greatest punishment by far would be telling Clint. He had a practical concern he had to tell Natasha though. 

“I don’t know if FRIDAY will allow us to make a cure if she thinks I’ll give it to Tony, it was her idea in the first place.” 

“I scrubbed all the Red Room files” 

James laughed mirthlessly. 

“You released all the Hydra files, apparently more than me was sold.” 

She cursed in Russian. James nodded in agreement. 

“FRIDAY found it when she was lookin’ for a way to look after Tony despite Tony.” 

“This is getting too Asimov for me” 

“Yeah, well I think if I hadn’t complied like a good little murderbot then Viz would have done it. They love their dad an’ they want him cared for” 

“This is all kinds of fucked up” she shivered forcefully then straightened, wrapping her usual practicality around herself like a mantle “Go clean up, I’ll bring Clint to meet you back here in an hour” 

James nodded and obeyed. He knew non-compliance would be punished harshly. 

________________________________________ 

Well, it’d gone about how he’d expected. Here he was, knelt on the ground, head bowed as Clint scrubbed angrily at his eyes with one hand. The other hand held a gun (Browning 911, well kept, custom, nice bit of kit to be blown away by) which was waveringly pointed at James as the man sobbed. 

Clint had been horrified to hear that he may have been brainwashed _again_. The anguished look on his face was something James would remember until his last moments. The way his voice broke with the _“no”_ s that streamed from the shaking head before he pulled the gun, that was what broke James. 

“I’m so sorry my heart” his voice caught on the last word. 

“Don’t” screamed Clint “You don’t get to call me that again. How could you?” 

“I just wanted to talk to you for an hour, one hour without you runnin. I’m sorry I never meant ta” 

“Shut up! Shut. Up. I shoulda fucking killed you when Cap brought you in you fucking rapist shit” 

The barrel of the gun came back to waver in his face. Clint seemed beyond reason (with good reason thought James, he waited patiently for the end).

“Clint, enough” came Tasha’s voice. Somehow she’d managed to cross the clearing unnoticed by either of them. Clint screamed at the sky and threw his browning into the long grass. 

“Don’t you fucking defend him Tash. Did you know? Did you know about it?” the anguish is Clint’s voice was terrible to hear. James admired Natasha’s ability to project calm as she replied, he was just as much of a mess as Clint. 

“I’m not, I found out an hour and a half ago at which point I said that he had to tell you. Stockholm Serum is a Red Room invention but I didn’t know they’d sold it to Hydra” 

“What is it? What the fuck has he poisoned me with?” 

“I haven’t...” 

“Did I fucking say you could talk yet? Shut the fuck up James.” 

James decided that it was a good idea to stay quiet and allow Natasha to explain. She was better with words anyhow. 

“It’s a serum that makes people more suggestible but it only works with things that they are already willing to do. The serum couldn’t force you to date James if you didn’t want to but it could push you to say yes when he asked as it was something that you already wanted but were too scared to ask yourself.” 

“The fuck?” Clint’s voice was incredulous. 

“He would _never_ rape you. He has _always_ accepted no for an answer with no need for a reason from you. When he found out about Loki he confessed everything to me Clint. He forfeited his life willingly to make up for his crime. Clint, why wouldn’t you tell the man who loves you about Loki?” 

“Coz then” and James heard Clint’s voice hitch “Coz then he wouldn’t like me anymore. Fuck.” 

James must’ve made a slight motion as if to stand, Tasha stopped him with a look before she turned once more to contemplate Clint. James braved looking too and what he saw saddened him beyond measure. Clint was a mess, his face was pale and drawn, eyes red, tears smeared all over his cheeks. His hair was even more untidy than usual, odd tufts pointed every which way evidence that Clint had been tugging on it in his distress. As he watched, James saw the archer collapse onto the tree stump sobbing anew. Natasha was instantly by him, strong hands on Clint’s knees, her own eyes rapidly filling with tears. The blond grabbed her hands even as he avoided her gaze by staring determinedly at the tree line. 

“Clint no. James loves _you_ not the idea of you. He’s still learning how to be a person and he chose you to be the one he’s bettering himself for my dog loving, pizza scarfing, disaster on two legs best friend.” 

Clint’s mouth twitched slightly and James kept himself carefully still, barely even breathing as he watched them. Natasha gave her friend a moment to absorb it before she started again. 

“Who fixed me when I left the Red Room?” 

“Me aaaand Phil” Clint whispered threadily, barely audible to James’ enhanced hearing. 

“And who fixed you after Thor’s dillhole brother?” 

“You” he replied more strongly “And Steve and Tony and Bruce and Hill.” 

“Soo what should we do with James?” she asked coaxingly. James saw a variety of emotions flow over Clint’s face before the man reluctantly opened his mouth. 

“Help Steve fix him I guess” 

Tasha smiled and patted his knee before standing. She glanced over to James who startled a little as he saw Clint follow her gaze. James bowed his head again, cheeks hot with shame from the pair’s cool regard. He heard Tasha’s voice as if from the other side of the planet. 

“You don’t have to forgive him or take him back but I beg you not to be cruel or unkind. He’s promised to reverse engineer the serum with Tony. He is not a monster Clint, if he was then he would not care to change” 

James flinched as though struck, no matter what Tasha said, he knew that he had been a monster and he hadn’t stopped being one since he’d escaped from Hydra. _Monster_ rolled on lazy wings across his head and he missed Clint’s reply as well as the movements of two pairs of booted feet coming toward him, only looking up blindly when a shadow fell across his face. Tasha cocked her head curiously. 

“Where were you so far away?” 

James had no way of forming a coherant reply, he simply murmured dazedly. 

“Monster, always.” 

She pursed her lips as if to reply but he had already turned to Clint, meeting the archer’s bloodshot eyes with his own. The words fell from his lips before he could stop them. 

“My heart I’m sorry, I never wanted to take from you, only to give.” 

Clint glared down at him, his eyes red but his voice now steady. 

“Talk is cheap Barnes. Fix this shit and then I might be willing to listen.” 

With that said, he stomped over to where his gun lay in the grass, scooped it up in one swift movement and left the clearing without so much as a backwards glare. James sighed. 

“Well I’m a whole lot less dead than I thought I’d be.” 

Tasha held out a hand, smirking slightly at the comment as he slowly stood, knees clicking from how long he’d been kneeling on the ground. Her only reply was: 

“Let’s get you to Tony and you can start fixing this.” 

They walked back to the compound in an almost comfortable silence. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The next week was spent locked away in Tony’s biolab with him; feeding, cleaning and fucking the man into unconsciousness at FRIDAY’s prompting as well as caring for the anti-serum cultures whenever Tony was on Ironman duties or asleep. At the end of the eighth day they emerged sweaty, dishevelled and in dire need of a shower. James supported Tony with his metal arm as they staggered from the building, two precious vials of anti-serum clutched triumphantly in his flesh hand. 

Much as he wanted desperately run straight to the range and jab Clint with the science juice, James forced himself to focus on pulling Tony into the shower, washing and drying the exhausted genius. He tucked Tony into bed, kissing the top of his head before leaving him to drift off gently. 

James returned to the bathroom to load one of the ampoules into the cartridge holder inside his robot arm. He hid the spare one back in the wall cupboard out of reach of FRIDAYs robot minions then went to leave the ensuite. He hesitated, irresolute, one foot already in the bedroom before impulsively retrieving the second tiny vial and hiding it in his hand. 

He strode over to the bed, looming over Tony’s sleeping form for a moment then swept down to kiss him noisily on the temple, the smacking sound concealing the hiss of the automatic injection where his hand rested on Tony’s exposed shoulder. Supersecret rebellion against misguided A.I. complete, James finally left the suite and headed straight to Tasha’s room, Clint would either be there or working his anger out at the range. 

He knocked the, according to Barton, traditional supersecretspy code of ‘shave and a haircut’ (he was ninety percent sure it had actually come from Clint’s addiction of all things Bob Hoskins) and was unsurprised to hear ‘two bits’ from somewhere inside. It was definitive evidence of Clint’s presence, confirmed moments later when the door opened to reveal Tasha in cosy plaid pyjamas and Clint sat in her bed almost fully under the covers. She raised a single eyebrow. 

“It’s done” he said, grinning in relief. 

Tasha turned her head just enough to see Clint nod tightly then she stepped aside to let James past. He approached the bed slowly to avoid causing Clint any alarm and knelt at the side of it just out of arm’s reach. The blond sat up a little against the headboard then wiggled over just enough to extract one arm to lay it in reach of James. 

“Okay, do it.” 

The door quietly clicked shut behind him as he shuffled awkwardly towards Clint on his knees. He could feel Tasha standing guard and it inexplicably warmed his chest. Telegraphing his movements clearly, James opened up his arm, popped out the empty vial and replaced it with the full one. Closing the machinery up again, James reached over to stroke Clint’s arm with his metal hand, his sensors registering a light trembling and he could see goosebumps all over the bare flesh. He looked at the other man; Clint’s eyes were tightly shut, head turned away, tremors ran through his entire body, his muscles strung tight as he forced himself to stay still for James. And James could just not leave him like that. 

“Clint.” 

The clear ocean colored eyes opened to glare steadily at James though the rest of the body still shook. James pitched his voice to be low and soothing. 

“If Tasha believed that I would harm you deliberately in any way do you think I would be alive let alone allowed in this room?” 

It was the right thing to say, James heard Clint exhale heavily, the archer’s body infinitesimally relaxing and the shaking finally subsiding under the metal fingers. Clint nodded determinedly. 

“Okay, do it” he iterated. 

“I’m so sorry my heart” James whispered as he pressed slightly herder with his forefinger to engage the hypodermic. It hissed once and the deed was done. He released Clint’s arm, the man was staring again as James shuffled backwards to a non-threatening distance before standing to leave. He had only one last thing to say. 

“I wish you well my heart, it’s all I’ve ever wished for you.” 

He turned and left swiftly, nodding at Tasha on his way past but refusing to wait for Clint’s reaction. The only sound in the corridor was his booted feet.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a happier sequel coming, honest!
> 
> My chumblr is always open.
> 
> Comments welcome.


End file.
